In the midst of a fierce and tumultuous war, the armies of Brahmavāsantaka were struck down by spinning discs, their ranks falling to the earth like blossoming trees felled by the saws of great woodcutters. Nearby, the Jaṭharas wielded their axes to hew down the forest of Bhokkaṇaka, and as the trees crashed to the ground, the lord of Bhadra unleashed a rain of fiery arrows, burning the fallen woods. The aged elephants of Kashi, caught in the tangled creepers of battle, perished unawares, consumed like dry fuel in a blazing fire. The warriors of Trigarta, lost in the whirlpools of combat, became as insignificant as blades of grass; fleeing in terror, their heads scattered, they plunged into the depths of the netherworld. The warriors of Magadha, with their slow, windless, mountain, and ocean-bright forms, were overwhelmed and sank dispirited into the mire, like old elephants mired in mud. On the battlefield, Jahnu deprived the warriors of their consciousness, just as sunlight destroys the delicacy of flowers strewn along the path. The Kosalas, unable to withstand the fierce assault of the Pauravas, were struck down like children beneath a rain of maces, spears, arrows, and javelins. Limbs severed by arrows, the fleeing warriors appeared like coral trees on a mountain, their bodies streaming thick blood in terror. Showers of iron arrows, tossed by the mighty wind of battle, whirled about, shining like swarms of bees over the ocean. Clouds of arrows, dark as rainclouds and filled with the foam of arrows, covered trees with arrow-feathers, roaring and trembling with the speed of their discharge. Ancient forests and their creatures were shattered by the force, breaking apart like delicate threads stretched to their limit. Crowds of people fell upon the chariots, whose wheels stood upright and whose warriors’ heads were either buried or raised, like clouds falling upon forested mountains. When the battle reached the dense forest of sal and palmyra trees, the place became a thicket of people, a wild grove where arms were severed and trunks upraised. Meanwhile, beautiful women, intoxicated by youth, rejoiced in the gardens and groves on Mount Meru, sheltered by the foremost of heroes. That lofty forest of warriors shone with tumultuous battle-cries, until the enemy overran it, blazing with the force of a world-ending fire. Some warriors, their weapons seized by Huns and joined by demons, struck down their foes and fled to the Karnas and Dasharnas, like birds seeking water. The Kashi warriors, their voices broken and splendor lost before the might of the Tajika troops, withered like lotuses in a dried-up stream. Encircled by belts of arrows, spears, lances, and maces, they fled, cast into the hell named Karkota’s domain. The Kurukshetra warriors, surrounded by ascetics disguised as fighters, became powerless, like virtues overcome by the wicked. The Dravidians swiftly took the heads of the banyan-tree dwellers with arrows and fled, like plucked lotuses. Just as Sarasvati and Aditya achieved victory from beginning to end, so too, like learned scholars in debates, they were neither distressed nor defeated. The gates were closed off by heaps of broken debris and small mounds; the supreme brilliance appeared, like extinguished fires without fuel. How much can be described of this battle, when even the mass of tongues is agitated with thick saliva? Even Vasuki himself could not recount the battlefield’s glory. Thus raged the exceedingly tumultuous battle, with fierce warriors and chaos, unrestrained and loud from beginning to end. Stones were hurled in showers, rivers stirred by missiles, and rows of lotuses scattered by the clamor. Warriors clashed in the sky, with fruits, tips, and sparks of fire raining and falling far away in rivers of arrows. Waves swirled with severed heads, feet, and lotus wheels; the ocean was filled with streams of weapons and groups of Mandakini rivers. At the gates of battle, dense clouds of powdered weapons stirred by wind afflicted the bodies of the accomplished, causing pain even to monkeys and tortoises. The hero’s form, sweetened by valor, now possessed only a fraction of its former brilliance; wearied by the blows of weapons, he became diminished. Horses were exhausted, foremost weapons shattered, and radiance faded—the armies, along with the sun, grew faint in their splendor. After deliberation with their ministers, the commanders sent messengers to each other, agreeing, “Let the battle be ended.” Fatigued, their arrows and weapons wielded feebly, all consented to cease the battle at that time. At the edge of the armies, beneath lofty banners and great chariots, one steadfast warrior ascended, alone and immovable. He waved a cloth, visible in all directions like a circle, resembling a long moonbeam in the sky, signaling, “Let the battle cease.” Then, the drums fell silent, their echoes fading in all directions, like whirlpools in a lotus pond stilled at the end of a great dissolution. Streams of arrows and weapons, spread wide across the sky, began to dry up, just as autumnal rivers do. The movement of warriors’ arms gradually diminished, like the trembling of trees at the end of an earthquake or the waves of the ocean when the wind has ceased. Both armies withdrew from the battlefield, like floodwaters receding from the single ocean of dissolution. The army, agitated like the churning of the ocean of milk by the uplifted Mandara mountain, slowly came to rest in the stillness of peace. In a short while, the battlefield became utterly desolate and dreadful, as the gaping belly of death, empty like the ocean drunk dry by Agastya.